00:00He's a Chino who brought his own food from his home country so that the Filipinos can taste it.
00:07He's Mike Shao, the business owner and executive chef of a hotpot or shabu-shabu restaurant.
00:14Now, let's find out his business story right here in Negosya Tayo.
00:20Hi, I'm Mike Shao.
00:22You can have a very special experience in our restaurant.
00:27We have very unique and distinct flavors for you.
00:41Eight years ago, I started this business.
00:43I bring this special big pot from China, Hunan, my hometown.
00:51And I also bring this special ingredients, special sauce from my hometown.
00:58I was just an employee in my country, and I came here just to travel around.
01:07When I travel around, I like the Philippines, I like this country.
01:12And I saw a lot of Chinese before here.
01:16There was not so many Chinese food at that moment.
01:19But now, there are plenty of.
01:21In China, I was not in this business before.
01:25But I like food a lot, and I like to study a lot of ingredients.
01:31Firewood is very, very traditional.
01:34And it's, you know, people like firewood because in their memory, they like firewood.
01:41And firewood, the smell of the wood, of course, something will go inside the soup.
01:48It will make the taste very special.
01:51As of now, we don't have too many questions because, you know, there's a lot of Chinese going out.
01:57But we are still positive about the future.
02:03We are making some adjustments.
02:05How to localize, make the food more comfortable for Filipinos.
02:11New menu is still studied, which is called Maratang.
02:16But it's kind of like similar to our original concept
02:20because I use the same ingredients from the big pot.
02:24I just transfer the big pot to a small bowl.
02:27As a business owner, you don't have your, actually, you don't have your, you don't have holiday.
02:35I'm also a chef here.
02:37You don't have your rest day, to be honest.
02:40And you, of course, when there's always have dry season, have rainy season,
02:46you can rest when there's not so busy.
02:49If you want to start your own business in the Philippines,
02:53you need to make a good plan, make a good strategy.
02:58And your food needs to be special because the business here in this country is very,
03:04very competitive so that people will recognize you.
03:09Will identify you.
